The Very First Place a Novelist Screws Up

Conception.

You wouldn't think that a person could screw up on their writing before they've written a word, but I've found that that is the most likely place for a person to screw up.  Let me explain why.

Sometimes, I have people approach me and ask me if I'm a writer.  I reply that I am a novelist, and they proceed to tell me they have a great idea for a book.  At this point in the story, I'm inwardly groaning because there is no right way for me to respond to them.  Without having heard their idea, I know it's good.  People are smart, inventive, and creative.  A person would not sit a novelist down and tell them an idea for a book that wasn't going to appeal to someone.  They tell me their idea and it's great.

But even great ideas have challenges attached to them.  If I tell this aspiring author the troubles attached to their idea, they are going to feel deflated, defeated, and they'll give up. 

If I tell them their idea is great without attaching a specific warning, something else will happen that is equally bad.  They'll get really excited and they'll tell me a lot more about the story than the simple premise.  The creative pistons in their head will start firing and they'll tell me every part of their story that they've worked out.  This is a mistake, but I let this happen many times before I realized how big of a mistake it was. 

You see, talking is a form of expression.  So is writing.  If you performed an experiment by writing a fresh draft of the same short story every Friday for a month, then read them over to try to choose the best one... I bet you'd pick the first one.  I don't know why your first half-brained attempt is usually the best one, but it is.  I have written many things that were excellent, but for some dumb reason, I lost my first whack at it.  I've had to pick up the pieces and replace it with other text which isn't as good.  It's a second try instead of a first try.  Back to the aspiring writer, they've had their first whack at their story talking to a woman in a park, not on a page where it can be recorded, studied, and possibly improved. 

Months later, I run into this person again.  I slap them on the back (if they make me listen to their idea for a novel for more than five minutes, I reserve the right to slap them on the back), and I ask them how their novel is coming.  They look at me like I'm the body they buried in the woods last summer because they thought they were never going to see me again.  They choke their response.

They haven't worked on their book since we last spoke.

I slap them on the back again and remind them that there are lots of things in life that are more important than writing novels.  They shouldn't give it another thought... but they do.  A little later in the conversation, they'll sidle up to me and ask me timidly if I have finished writing the novel I was working on when we talked last.  I'll tell them I have, and they will be reduced to ashes at my feet.

You see, when we had our conversation about their perspective book, they felt a surge of validation as creative energy flowed through them.  They felt like they were a writer (without actually having any idea how much unpleasantness that word carries because all they can see is the elusive glamor attached to any artsy pursuit).  After all, they were having a conversation with a writer who was acknowledging them as a writer.  They felt talented, appreciated and their brain sealed the idea as fulfilled and finished because they had received their reward.

When I confronted them about the status of their project, I stripped them of all those lovely feelings about their idea, but also about themselves.  I've made them into a person who only knows how to run their mouth without actually buckling down and writing.  They're embarrassed.

I'm unhappy too because it was not my intent to embarrass them.  I was trying to be supportive and friendly.  Back in those days, I didn't yet recognize the cycle of people who like cornering authors in public and begging them for feedback on work that doesn't exist. 

The solution?  For me, I try to pull the plug on writers telling me their ideas.  I remind them that if they like their idea for a story, that's all they need.  Someone out there will like it.  They don't need anyone's permission to write.  Neither do I.  Neither do you.  So, go write.